Churches are beginning to embrace their LGBT congregants

[ND-Dem]

From the outside, Eastlake Community Church looks like a lot of other evangelical mega-churches. It boasts 13 weekly services at six locations in the greater Seattle area; the head pastor is a bearded hipster; and the main campus is a warehouse turned sanctuary where greeters serve coffee, a tattooed band rocks out beneath colored lights and attendance swells whenever the Seahawks are not playing. On a rainy Sunday in early January, William Paul Young, the author of the evangelical best seller The Shack is piped in via a pretaped video to preach about trusting Jesus and a campus pastor prays to ask God to make their hearts open to change. It is almost enough to make you miss what is …

http://time.com/3668781/inside-the-evangelical-fight-over-gay-marriage


Eastlake home church is actually in Bothell, WA. an Eastside (think Bellevue-Redmond-Microsoft) bedroom community.

http://eastlakecc.com/

[marym625]

1. Amen to that!

[DonViejo]

2. Why post an article no one can read...

unless they have a subscription to TIME?

[ND-Dem]

4. I posted the link to Eastlake Church; the best I could do, sorry.

Here's a somewhat related story:

After he graduated from college last year, Robertson, now 22, became the national spokesperson for Evangelicals for Marriage Equality, an initiative started by millennials to help evangelicals support civil gay marriages. He spoke at a Reformation Project conference, an effort by fellow evangelical activist Matthew Vines to raise up affirming evangelicals in every evangelical church in the country, last fall. Robertson also blogs regularly about issues of social justice, and sexuality, on his Patheos blog, “Revangelical,” and has been featured in numerous news outlets for his work to encourage evangelicals toward greater gay and lesbian inclusion. TIME featured Robertson in January in a magazine story, “Inside the Evangelical Fight Over Gay Marriage.”

http://time.com/3716350/brandan-roberston-destiny-image/

[kelliekat44]

3. They tithe faithfully. nt

[kwassa]

5. Some churches embrace their LGBT clergy, as well as congregants.

like the Episcopal church, which also performs same-sex marriages.

I attend a church where the previous pastor was gay and partnered, and both she and her partner were very welcome in the congregation.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

6. UUs and Congregationalists don't have a problem with LGBT people.

Trying to drag some churches into the modern age is a futile act. Other churches are progressive as I mentioned.

[ND-Dem]

7. eastlake community church is a full-on evangelical church i'd describe as right of center or

maybe libertarian.

. . .the changing allegiances and divides in evangelical churches and communities over homosexuality. In public, so many churches and pastors are afraid to talk about the generational and societal shifts happening. But behind the scenes, it’s a whole different game. Support for gay marriage across all age groups of white evangelicals has increased by double digits over the past decade, according to the Public Religion Research Institute, and the fastest change can be found among younger evangelicals—their support for gay marriage jumped from 20% in 2003 to 42% in 2014.

This winter, EastLake Community Church outside Seattle is quietly coming out as one of the first evangelical megachurches in the country to support full inclusion and affirmation of LGBTQ people. It is almost impossible to overstate the significance of this move. EastLake is in many ways the quintessential evangelical megachurch–thousands-strong attendance, rock-music worship, Bible-preaching sermons. But pastor Ryan Meeks, 36, is on the front wave of a new choice. “I refuse to go to a church where my friends who are gay are excluded from Communion or a marriage covenant or the beauty of Christian community,” Meeks tells me. “It is a move of integrity for me—the message of Jesus was a message of wide inclusivity.”

http://theothermccain.com/2015/01/16/dear-time-per-the-bible-churches-still-admit-sinners-yet-they-still-reject-sin/

The times they are a-changing. I hope the will change with regard to economics, poverty and concentration of wealth and political control too; and sooner rather than later.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. How typical of straight people, make a claim about an LGBT issue and exclude any criticism by

using subscription only links. I will assume that the article uses slippery language to make exaggerated claims that are unsupported in the actual teachings and actions of this Church because that is what Time and other straights have done with Francis. I assume it is all backhanded, like Francis, and being reported to favor the religion, just like the reporting about Francis.

[el_bryanto]

9. So you assume a fellow DUer is being disingenuous at best, and a liar at worst?

You really do see the worst in everybody sometimes.

Bryant

[ND-Dem]

10. you're free to assume what you like. here's another time article peripherally relalted to

the one in question.

http://time.com/3716350/brandan-roberston-destiny-image/


which I already posted, along with some other information.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026257802#post7